By Sayali Amarapurkar, Edina
“Are you a princess in your country?” asked my 20-year old Caucasian graduate assistant as she looked at my picture on my office desk. Having just finished my PhD from University of Minnesota, I was hired to teach a course in my department. It was a picture of me from my wedding day back home in India, dressed in the finest pink silk sari and gold jewelry, perched on a golden throne with a wide bright smile! I got married and came to USA with my husband who was a doctor. Like any other arranged marriage, I got to know him through a mutual family friend. Although I was used to hearing many different questions about my origin, my people and my country, this was a new question for me.
“Why do you think so?” I asked.
“Look at you all in gold. Looks like you come from a rich royal family!” She was noting her observations so matter-of-factly that I was taken aback! I had never thought about that before.
My wedding picture is similar to a wedding picture of any South Asian Hindu bride. Girls are expected to get married in their early twenties and parents from all socioeconomic backgrounds want to see their daughter dressed in the finest traditional clothes and jewelry on her wedding day. Parents and relatives go out of their ways and means to give a lavish wedding to their daughters. Sometimes they even mortgage their house, take out loans, or sell their land to afford a lavish wedding. It is so much a part of the South Asian culture that we don’t think twice when we see such a bride. This American college student who grew up in the Midwest had never seen anything like this before and was asking her naive questions.
I said “I am not from a very rich household, but an upper-middle class family. I am the eldest grandchild and have a big joint family of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins who all were very excited about this first wedding in the family after a long time. So it was indeed a big affair and I did feel like a princess that day!!”
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